Netflix Case Study

Netflix was founded in 1997 with the intent to revolutionize the way in which consumers watch movies and television shows. Their accomplishments both in innovation and in customer base for their service indicate that the firm has been, and continues to be, successful in doing so. Currently, the

Q 1. Some of Netflix’s capabilities and core competencies are mentioned in the case. Go

The downturn of the economy has taken away many peoples disposable income and Netflix’s limited online library may have caused customers to question if it was worth it or not.

Blockbuster Entertainment, Inc. was once a highly successful and profitable brick and mortar home movie and video game rental store. At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster had up to 60,000 employees and more than 9,000 stores. The idea behind Netflix came from an unsatisfied, embarrassed customer of Blockbuster, Mr. Reed Hastings, now CEO of Netflix, paid a $40 late fee because he returned the movie Apollo 13 six weeks later (Zarafshar, 2013). He began to contemplate ingeniously about a notion to change the movie-leasing pattern into a more pioneering industry. In 1997 Netflix was started as a DVD rental-by-mail business without subscriptions. In 1999, taking a stride additional in the direction of evolving the industry, Hastings began the subscription-based business mode based on renting DVDs by mail with plans reliant on the quantity of titles taken at a time. Netflix put forward 120,000 titles for limitless monthly DVD rental with free shipping no late and per title fees. Since that time Netflix has become one of the most popular subscription services in the world, and is now valued at over $28 billion and steadily increasing. What factors contributed to the success and failure of these two companies?

cheaper and more convenient alternatives such as cable/ satellite providers offering recordings via DVR, cell phones, tablets and other electronic devices

Netflix is an entertainment company that specializes in streaming media and online video-on-demand. Over the years, it has grown to include film and television production and other distribution services. Its business model has changed, and so has its overall production cost grown to keep up with the increased market share. As a result, its current position in the market has made it more exposed to competition from other firms, which is why it needs to develop new strategies to remain profitable. Netflix has grown over the past years despite competition and its unprofitability (Helft, 2007). Therefore, to understand its success, it is important provide a microeconomic analysis of Netflix, its history, its products, and the market.

First formed in 1991, Netflix has become today’s predominant video rental service. They offer a hybrid service allowing DVD delivery by mail as well as streaming movies and TV shows via their company website or access on 200 other devices. Their unique business process has netted them over 16 million subscribers and revenue around $500 million annually. The reason for their growing success can be attributed to a good business model and just as important, properly implemented systems. An extremely efficient supply chain management system (SCM) and customer relationship management system (CRM) have helped Netflix become the world’s largest video subscription service.

The video rental industry began with brick and mortar store that rented VSH tape. Enhanced internet commerce and the advent of the DVD provided a opportunity for a new avenue for securing movie rentals. In 1998 Netflix headquartered in Los Gatos California began operations as a regional online movie rental company. While the firm demonstrated that a market for online rentals existed, it was not financially successfully. Netflix lost over $11 million in 1998 and as a result significantly changed the business model in 2000. The new strategy included focusing on becoming a nationally based subscription model and focusing on enhancing the subscribers experience on their website. The change in

1. Continue building strong partnerships with other providers – the company should continue partnering up with other providers preferably the multichannel television providers such as HBO and Starz in order to increase their selection of streaming titles. This will definitely help the company not only gain but also attract more customers or consumers and therefore increase market share. This would help lower the churn rate and help expand their subscriber base. Streaming titles can also be increased and improved if the company decides to partner up with these other multichannel providers. Based on research carried out in researching about Netflix it is being understood that Netflix is in partnership with multiple other companies or television providers. Due to all of these partnerships being formed the members or frequent customers are now being able to enjoy the benefits of watching these TV episodes, shows and also movies which are made possible to be streamed to their computers and televisions via the use of Netflix ready devices. In the case of Netflix partnering up with TV provider STARZ, for example, it is obvious that Netflix formed the partnership with STARZ entertainment LLC a movie service provider to make movies from STARZ play available for instant streaming at Netflix ( Netflix Inc 2013). If Netflix continues to work well with these providers the partnerships would be a good relationship which would be beneficial to both

Also Netflix needs to prepare a better plan to recover old customers, gain new customers and make sure that the people who still have Netflix keep it. Establishing a bundle price for both online streaming and DVD rental will allow The Netflix Company to recover some market shares and remain the leading overall digital film company. The recommendations are as follows:

One the one hand, the fertility of the industry opened the doors to corporations that sighted substantial growth potential. New entrants with big pockets such as Walmart could pose a certain threat to Netflix, by exploiting a playing card based on cost reduction. On the other hand, barriers to entry became relatively significant as established video rental retailers such as Netflix have the experience and the knowhow to market movies to people. In this industry, firms that do not have a technological advantage can’t compete. The best example is Netflix’s CineMatch program that offered personalized film recommendations based on customer’s rental patterns. This way, Netflix was able to better serve its subscribers. From a cost perspective, the movie rental industry requires high capital expenditures, and the major expenses are highly related to acquisitions of DVD library and investments in technology (exhibit 2 continued). Thus, we may say that entry is difficult in this industry as the competing firms have reputation, experience and recognizable brand names.

Many of their competitors have longer operating histories, larger customer bases, greater brand recognition and significantly greater financial, marketing and other resources than Netflix does. Some of their competitors have adopted, and may continue to adopt, aggressive pricing policies and devote substantially more resources to marketing and Web site and systems development than Netflix does. The rapid growth of their online entertainment subscription business since their beginning may attract direct competition from larger companies with significantly greater financial resources and national brand recognition. For instance in 2003 the extremely wealthy Wal-Mart used their online site to launch an online DVD subscription service, Wal-Mart DVD Rentals. With increased competition reduced operating margins may result as well as a loss of market share and reduced revenues. In addition, our competitors may form or extend strategic alliances with studios and distributors that could adversely affect our ability to obtain titles on favorable terms.

The case study “Equity of Demand: The NETFLIX Approach to Compensation” includes information regarding the company, named Netflix. The case study provides useful information regarding the organizational culture of Netflix. The case is usually associated with the practices of Human Resource Management. It shows how organizations like Netflix can come up with different strategies in order better keep the employees motivated and directed towards goal achieving behavior. It is extremely important for organizations running around the globe to find ways of keeping employees motivated and satisfied in order to increase employees’ productivity. Employees can be seen as backbone for any type of organization running around the globe. It is because the productivity of employees is directly related with the productivity of an organization. The better the employees perform the better the organization would be in terms of customer satisfaction, brand awareness, customer loyalty, profitability and so on so forth. Normally, organizations have different compensation plans to pay the employees for their efforts they make. For instance; some organizations would use money as a source of motivating employees. Such organizations will pay high amount

Netflix was founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in 1997 and was originally based out of Scotts Valley California. The business model that they were working towards was to create a company that would offer online movie rental service made available by streaming media as well as DVD’s that could be ordered online and delivered to the customers’ homes. (Wheelen, Case 12). Netflix had a strategic plan to undercut the competition in an effort to stress the market and force weaker competition out of the field. This was a very successful plan and over a period of years it was able to force the closings of most of its competing market to include the mega giant Blockbuster video. Using a business

Starting off as a mail-only service in August of 1997, the service rapidly bloomed into an online, paid source for thousands of movies, series, and other TV shows. Although their streaming option is the most favored, Netflix still offers users the opportunity to order DVDs and other forms of tangible movies. All in all, Netflix holds a multitude of positive and negative effects on society, both which include instant accessibility, immediate forms of entertainment, binge-watching, and unproductivity. Lastly, Netflix may soon become an overwhelmingly large company that takes the television and video distribution industries by storm due to its growing popularity and its ability to be cheaper than regular cable